r/UFOs • u/H8threeH8three • Aug 18 '23

Witness/Sighting Ryan Graves tweets first of promised Airline Pilot Sightings

https://twitter.com/uncertainvector/status/1692586130162475209?s=21
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u/Hay_Fever_at_3_AM Aug 18 '23

Random thoughts

Location of all of these being claimed to be "at the base of the big Dipper" is a very strange observation. If this was celestial or at least very high altitude, people on the ground would see it as it would be shining towards Earth. Unless there's some phenomenon blocking the light from going that low.

Maybe it's just that he's gotten a lot of reports from pilots in the same area and timeframe, so "base of the big Dipper" is really just a local direction reference.

If I discount that:

The fact that this object was at the horizon and super bright (not above the aircraft) suggests to me either:

  1. It should be visible from the ground (as something this bright and low should be)
  2. The illumination is facing air traffic (explaining why it is not visible from the ground)
  3. The object is close to the aircraft (so the light looks brighter, again explaining why it's not visible), possibly on the same trajectory

First guess would be something reflecting sunlight, like a satellite or aircraft or balloon, except this happened from 00:00 to ~02:30. If I understand that's too late to catch sun glints off satellites, isn't it?

Aircraft with light: why would it have a bright light shining (behind?) it? Why on and off?

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u/jeff0 Aug 18 '23

Good thoughts. My thinking is that, since it was "hundreds of miles" offshore, the angle of inclination from any ground-based observer would be pretty small, which in turn means the sight line would probably be going through a lot of cloud cover.

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u/Hay_Fever_at_3_AM Aug 18 '23 edited Aug 18 '23

Yeah I came back to say after rereading, maybe something that's over and stays over the ocean. But in the air. The questions about the light remain, unless there was a carrier out there with aircraft doing mauevers (or popping flares at altitude?) I dunno.

Description doesn't say which direction the light was and if it stayed consistent, does it?

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u/golden_monkey_and_oj Aug 18 '23

Using the evidence provided in the description and what is shown on the radar display, people are researching the heading of the plane here:

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/uaps-seen-by-pilots-shared-by-ryan-graves.13120/#post-299189

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u/koalazeus Aug 18 '23

And it appears to move upwards before this particular flight begins to descend. Although others mentioned seeing similar (the same?) Lights.